Global Warming and the Slippery Slope

When it comes to global warming, are we already too late? It is clear that global warming is not only real, but is accelerating. As the polar ice caps melt the earth loses some of its reflectivity. Blue oceans and brown rocks will absorb far more heat than the reflective ice caps. But even more frightening is that as the planet warms more methane will be released. There is methane frozen in the tundra, and methane ice as the bottom of the oceans. Methane is a vastly more powerful greenhouse gas than is carbon dioxide.

The question for us is whether we have reached a tipping point. Is the runaway global warming already too far progressed to stop? It is like the story of a man who jumped off of the Empire State Building. On his way down he saw people at the window on the 43rd. floor and shouted to them, “So far so good!”

I do not believe that anyone knows whether we have reached the tipping point or not. But the point is that if we are not taking steps now to prevent further global warming, it may very soon be too late. If you are canoeing in unknown waters and hear the sound of a waterfall, you may want to paddle hard in the opposite direction.